


Make it Together

by Feynite



Series: Looking Glass Alternate Universe Madness [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Looking Glass
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:46:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6528106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Looking Glass AU where Solas and Lavellan both manage to make it. (Please note - because a lot of this is based off of filled prompts, chapters might not be in chronological order to one another; we jump around a bit, in other words).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Together

“You bastard. Drop me and go,” she demands. It’s getting harder to stay focused.

“No.”

“Now. Now I’m worth saving?” she spits.

He keeps walking.

“You always planned to let me die.”

One step. Another. His right leg is dragging, now. His arms are shaking.

“Well, your plan has worked. So let me die.”

He keeps going, apparently by sheer stubborn pride alone.

“Plans… change,” he grits at her.

“Remember your goals, and do nothing that does not further them,” she parrots back at him.

He lets out a breath, and nearly stumbles. Catches himself, and keeps going. She is failing and fading, and he is staggering, but with every step the golden light in the sky draws closer. As if it’s straining to meet them, too.

It seems impossible.

It  _should be_  impossible.

But somehow, right before the world goes dark - they reach it.

~

She regains consciousness, gasping, to the surge of healing magic so potent she can feel it burning in her empty eye socket. Her wounds knit and her lungs fill up with breaths of it. Solas’ eyes gleam silver. She looks up to see his haggard face framed by a clear, blue sky, and the leafy branches of sheltering trees.

Before she can properly process everything that’s just happened, Solas - still carrying her, but now with a much steadier grip - swiftly pulls her into the tangle of the wood around them. Her instincts agree with his judgement; they are in a strange place, and it would be better to be hidden from direct sight until they can get their bearings.

Most of her mind, though, is just a mess of disjointed thoughts and grief. Despair. A strange, unwelcome relief.

They have gone back in time.

 _She_  has gone back in time.

_With him._

They are both of them still alive, and she can scarcely believe it; and after all that has happened, it feels utterly blasphemous to be grateful for it. She’s on the verge of - of something, she thinks. Some kind of break, torn to sharply between overwhelming horror and visceral relief.

“Vhenan,” Solas says.

She looks at him, and sucks in a deep breath; and in the absence of any better options, settles into a strange kind of numbness.

His gaze flits up, back the way they came.

“Mythal will be passing through here with an entourage very shortly, if we are when and where I planned to be,” he says, softly. “My past self will be with her. I should not reveal my identity; but my face will be familiar. I must disguise myself. Do you understand?”

She nods.

Yes, she understand duplicity. She understands urgency. She understands not wanting the evanuris to know anything - anything at all.

Solas lets her go, and the air around him shimmers. Potent and powerful. It plucks at her skin, sends tremors over and through her. The Fade is very close.

When the spell clears, a large wolf sits before her. Black, with six gleaming red eyes. Large paws and sleek fur, and a muzzle full of sharp, narrow teeth; a shadow brought to life. She regards him for a moment, thinking of a larger form of the same wolf; a towering monster fit to grace ancient murals and childhood nightmares.

“Let me do the talking, if you please; it will seem less unusual to them. They will not recognize you as a person,” he warns.

“Of course they won’t,” she murmurs.

He looks like he might speak; might say something more. But words fail him. They stand a moment longer until she hears the distinctive rhythm of many approaching footsteps.

Then she lets him take the lead, and all she feels is a vague twinge of regret for her lack of weapons.

The procession is led by a woman who is unerringly beautiful. Her followers are all but flawless, but even among them, she is exceptional. Tall, and willowy, and clad in ancient finery at the height of its beauty. Solas approaches the group, and she follows him; and the elves look at him in surprise, and look at her in open disgust.

“Greetings, Mythal. I come to offer you a service,” Solas says, in a voice lower and rougher than usual.

There is a white wolf at Mythal’s side. Thick, rich, fluffy fur.

She stares at him, while he stares at Solas - the two wolves different as night and day. After a moment, his eyes dart towards her, in return. His brow furrows, slightly.

“Interesting,” Mythal declares.

~

Solas makes some kind deal with Mythal, the details and subtleties of which elude her numbed ability to grasp, and they find themselves accommodated in a palace of unnerving opulence. Emotions spill into the air. Monumental works of art abound. Spirits are everywhere, and it is all hollow - all distant.

Solas gives his name as Banal’ras to Mythal’s people. She is viewed as his property; a thorough presumption which requires no confirmation on either of their parts. This seems to cause him deep unease, though no surprise. They think she is some kind of broken construct of flesh. They try to ‘fix’ her, but he stops them. Explains to her in low tones that the magic of this restored world could grow her a new limb; a new eye.

She consents to the eye. But her arm is gone, and that wound has settled; and she will not yield in this regard.

She gave up that arm to save her people. It would feel too much like she had traded them for it back, to accept.

Solas doesn’t press the matter. When one of the other elves attempts to, he makes a strong showing of his fangs.

She feels like she’s drifting through a dream.

Why. Why is she still alive? Her world is gone, and Solas will do whatever he so desperately needed to come back to do. Save Mythal. Get rid of the evanuris. Prevent any need for the Veil. Restore Elvhenan. All of it, he will do, with or without her. And so she wanders, and wonders, and feels as if the elves might be half right; as if she has become some kind of inadvertent pet of his, dragged back here for his sake. Enduring, for his sake. Permitted within the palace, because she ‘belongs’ to him.

“Miserable thing,” the elves whisper.

“What does he keep it for?”

“Why does he let it remain damaged?”

“Perhaps it is a punishment; a sign of displeasure.”

“Yes, that must be it.”

She is tolerated in Solas’ presence; and the spirits seem drawn to her, and in their company, she is generally let be. She draws unexpected bits of comfort from them. But when she is alone, it is apparent just how little standing she has. Solas has made his deal with Mythal, but she is only the property of someone who is not even, officially, her servant. The elves spit disdain at her. Contempt. Drive her away as an eyesore, refuse to let her touch things; even seem to become infuriated, at times, when she simply looks at them.

It comes to a head when Solas is discussing something with Mythal. He asks for her to join them. The evanuris refuses his request, and so she is left outside, instead.

She waits, but the room beyond the closed doors is opulent and overwhelming; so after a while she retreats to one of the nearby gardens. Searching for spirits.

Conversation reaches her instead; two elven men speaking beneath the shelter of a gold-leafed tree.

“What service do you think it does him?” one of the elves asks.

“I do not think it can even cast a single spell. There must only be one thing,” the other replies, looking mostly disgusted. “But it is so hideous, I do not see the appeal.”

“Perhaps  _that_  is the appeal,” the first suggests. “Something different. Perhaps he likes to break it, piece by piece, and only give back its pieces when it behaves. I could see the appeal in that.”

“I cannot say the same, myself.”

“Do you think he does it in that form…?”

She turns to leave, but at the same moment, the pair catch sight of her.

One’s face twists in disgust. The other, interest.

The interest, she thinks, is a lot more worrying.

“You,” the interested one calls, and gestures towards her, curtly. “Come here.”

“What are you doing?” his friend asks.

“Investigating the possibilities, obviously.”

She turns to leave instead, not liking the direction things appear to be moving in. Better to be rude, she thinks. It’s possible, all things considered, that she could plead ignorance. Or deafness, maybe.

“You, construct! Come here!” the elf snaps at her retreating form, with much more ire.

When she keeps walking, a wall of blue fire erupts in front of her. She flinches back, reflexively reaching for weapons that aren’t there. The air shimmers. But after a half a second, she realizes it’s not hot; and it doesn’t seem to be burning anything around it.

Behind her, the disgusted elf snickers.

“I think you startled it.”

“Well it was being  _most_  unaccommodating,” his friend replies. 

She turns as he approaches her. His eyes dart up and down her, assessing, and she tenses - the wall of fire at her back, its unwelcome caster at her front. The other elf, at least, seems content to stay where he is.

“What is your duty, construct? What does that shadow wolf keep you around for?” he asks, stopping an arm’s length away.

“I am a warrior,” she says, fighting the urge to give him a considerably less civil reply.

“A  _warrior?_  An odd claim, considering you probably lack the magic to cast even a spell as simple as that one,” the elf declares, nodding at the wall of fire. Which is fading, at least.

“Leave me be,” she asks.

He smiles. Amused, like a child slowly crushing a beetle under its foot.

“Are you afraid of me?” he wonders. “You should not be. I doubt I would damage you more than you already have been. And are you not a little bored, here, while your master is busy? Would you not like to put your skills to use?”

His hand reaches for her arm, and she reacts to his tone, and his implication, and the tense air and magic at her back; she grasps him, and sends him sprawling onto the ground. He goes down easily. Obviously not expecting her to retaliate, and also obviously not sure how to counter it once she does.

His friend stiffens, no longer amused.

The elf on the ground glowers at her.

“It attacked me!”

The air around her tenses; turns sharp with the readying of spells, and sours with outrage. She braces herself and internally curses. Two ancient elven mages, and she doesn’t even have a blade to block their attacks with. She’ll have to try and dodge, and hope to flee.

“What is going on here?” a familiar voice asks.

Solas’ voice; but Solas isn’t the one who speaks with that voice, here and now.

She turns and discovers that the white wolf is watching them.

“The creature attacked me,” the elf who had reached for her immediately declares, picking himself up off of the ground.

The wolf blinks.

“The creature with no magic attacked you?” he asks, very slowly, as if he’s uncertain as to whether he’s hearing his claim correctly.

“You saw it,” the other elf interjects. “It put hands on him.”

“Was that not what he was requesting?” the wolf asks, turning back to her harasser. “It told you it was a warrior; you know it has no magic. Then you asked it to use its skills. I can scarcely see any other reasonable response, all things considered.”

The elves’ expressions both sour further. But they don’t seem to have much to offer in response. The slightly less appalling one scoffs, a little, and rolls his eyes, as if he sees some great stupidity at play.

The wolf strides more fully into the garden.

“This is the property of one of Mythal’s guests. It reflects poorly upon us for you to interfere with it. Leave the thing be,” he instructs.

With some clear resentment and not just a bit of quiet disdain, the pair of elves withdraw.

She watches them go before she turns back towards the white wolf. Solas, but not Solas. Younger. Stranger. Surrounded by glitter and finery, with all the qualities of a well-kept pet. And apparently at least a little inclined to help her, it seems; though she’s had no indication so far that he finds her any less insignificant than the other elves of this time do.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You should not wander so far from your master,” he advises.

“He is not my master,” she tells him.

“No?” he asks, tilting his head. “Who is, then? He has not mentioned serving another.”

“Because he does not. I have no master, and neither does he,” she replies.

The wolf looks unconvinced. But then he seems to set the notion aside, as if for later mental review, and only gives an expressive, canine shrug in response. He fixes her with another kind of speculative look.

It’s far less unnerving than the last one she was subjected to, even considering who he is.

Solas but not Solas.

 _Pride_ , she decides.

“Is it true, what you told them? That you are a warrior?” he asks her.

She pauses, but after a moment, simply nods.

“And you fight like that? Without magic?”

“Ordinarily I have weapons. But, yes,” she admits.

“Interesting,” he murmurs.

~

Solas’ younger self seems set on getting information from her, she thinks. He asks her to teach him how to fight, and over time she finds the white wolf is at her side whenever the black one is not. She sees Solas’ face, younger and so much less burdened, standing across from her on fighting fields. Questioning her, often. She discovers that she has magic; and both wolves help her figure out how to control it better.

The other elves continue to whisper at her, but none approach her again.

“They think I’m some kind of sex toy,” she mentions to Solas, offhandedly, one evening as they dine alone. The vast banquet hall is unwelcoming to her, and he doesn’t seem to relish it, either. They take their meals in the privacy of the rooms afforded to them. Even in privacy, though, he keeps the shape of a wolf.

Solas stiffens.

“Why would they…? I have hardly even touched you in public. And I have been a  _wolf!”_  he snaps, infuriated and unnerved.

She shrugs.

“Deduction,” she reasons. “They cannot fathom any other reason to keep an empty body around.”

“You are not empty,” he tells her.

“Sometimes it feels that way,” she admits.

They fall silent.

There isn’t much either of them can say to that.

After a moment, Solas stands and pads over to her. When he butts his head against her, she sighs, and puts her arms around him. His fur is soft and warm, at least. Meal forgotten, she lets herself take comfort in him. It is too big of a grief, and there is too much of it, for her to push him away.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“Don’t,” she replies.

He subsides, but stays close; and she sleeps that night with him curled up against her; waking from nightmares to red eyes gleaming in the dark.

She looks for him in her dreams. But he doesn’t sleep well - somehow even less well than she herself does - and so she finds another wolf instead. White and gazing over the remnants of a battlefield. Her presence takes him aback; and in the morning, when Solas leaves to speak with Mythal, and she finds him on the training field, he looks at her with new speculation.

They spar; when they break, he sits beside her.

“How did you lose your arm?” he asks her.

She glances at him, and tries to think of a response for that which wouldn’t be completely insane. Or incriminating.

“I touched something I probably should not have,” she settles on saying. “Though it saved my life, at the time.”

His expression twists in displeasure. She wonders if lacking a limb is truly so appalling in this time.

Then he peers at her face.

“You were missing an eye as well, when we found you,” he notes. 

“I would prefer not to discuss that,” she admits. 

She shakes her head, a little, to chase away the curling of unease in her gut that the memory prompts.

Pride frowns, but he does not press the matter. They sit in an oddly tense silence; she thinks he is upset, though not at her. At some other thing, perhaps, troubling his mind. She leaves him to sort it out, and watches the elves sparring on the other end of the field instead.

“You say you are not bound to this Banal’ras,” he eventually muses, interrupting the quiet.

She blinks.

“No. I said he was not my master,” she replies.

He glances at her, and shifts a little.

“I think, perhaps, I could convince Mythal to accept you as a servant,” he says. “It would be safer for you. You would have some standing, and protection. Mythal is kind to her servants.”

She glances at him, and wonders what has prompted this strange suggestion. An effort to get more information on Solas from her? An offer of status in exchange for secrets?

“Thank you, but no,” she says.

“I would not let the others mistreat you,” he informs her.

She sighs.

“That is kind. But I am not interested in being bound into service.”

His expression twists further.

“As if you are not already,” he says. “This Banal’ras has little enough status; he is what protects you, and his own safety balances on the thread of Mythal’s interest in him. What does he even mean by coming here? Where is he from? What hold does he have on you, that you would turn away an offer of better protection?”

She runs her hand down the side of her face, and looks at him. Suspicious of his own other self’s motives; because of course he is.

“He wants to save this world,” she says; and she can’t keep a certain bitter bite from her tone.

Pride is silent again, for a while.

“From what?” he asks.

She shrugs.

“Itself.”

When she stands to go, he halts her, briefly. His hand closes around her wrist. A very gentle touch, before he withdraws it.

“If he is not your master, then you are also a guest in this place. My guest, we shall say. There is a standard of treatment for such things. If you are troubled, by  _anyone,_  please come and find me,” he asks.

Her heart twists, at that face and that voice, regardless of his motives. It is clear his effort to be kind is genuine.

“I will,” she assures him.

~

The earth trembles. She is on the practice field with Pride at the time. The damage done to the palace is considered an outrage, though there are no injuries, at least.

Solas finds her, afterwards.

“We must go, now,” he declares.

“Something about the earthquake?” she asks.

He nods.

“These tremors happened in my time, but they should not be so fierce, and one should not have happened now. Something has gone wrong,” he asserts. “There is a Titan. Mythal will attempt to combat it, will fight the dwarves if left to her own devices. I have done what I can to discourage that inclination; but we must investigate this matter ourselves.”

She lets out a heavy breath, and he looks at her. And even as a wolf, he looks like he is overflowing with sorrows.

“If I thought you would be safe staying here, I would not ask you to come with me,” he says.

She shakes her head at him. Shrugs.

“What else am I to do now?” she asks.

“You may do as you please,” he tells her. “If you wish a safe place to live peacefully, I will help you find it.”

She lets out a heavy breath.

“I do not think I would know what to do with one even if I had it,” she admits. Then she closes her eyes, and shakes her head. “No. Please, do not just suddenly leave me again. Not even if you think it is better that way. Do not abandon me here.”

He shifts, and looks towards the sky.

“I will not,” he promises, very softly.

They leave with little fanfare, beyond a last conversation between Solas and Mythal. Solas briefly entertains the notion of doing something to remove his younger self from the machinations of fate, and the potential for him to commit some disastrous error in the future.

She looks at him, hard, for that suggestion.

“Do not lay a  _finger_  on him,” she snaps.

It takes him aback.

But then he subsides, comprehending, and - with only slight reluctance - agrees to leave the matter be. She thinks he would agree to most things she could ask of him, now.

She doesn’t want his guilt. But if there is one thing worth using it for, it’s probably this.

They depart in the grey light of dawn. Apparently, though the palace has an eluvian, Mythal hasn’t granted them the use of it. They’ll have to trek out towards a nearby village and employ the one there, if they want to reach the Frostback mountains with any speed.

“My younger self wanted to keep you with him. He had many vociferous objections to letting me leave with you,” Solas tells her, with some wry amusement.

She turns, and glances towards the palace behind them; as if the white wolf might somehow suddenly materialize in front of it.

“He’s been trying to convince me to stay. I think he thinks he can get me to give up all of your secrets,” she replies.

“Perhaps that is what he tells himself,” Solas muses.

The implication strikes her, and she raises an eyebrow.

“He has barely spoken to me,” she says.

“It would not take much,” he assures her.

She sighs.

“Romantic,” she accuses.

When they are further from possible prying eyes, he turns back into an elf, and takes her hand. Carefully. There is still a great deal of pain between them, but she weaves her fingers through his, and lets it be. Lets the warmth ease some of the numbness in her.

“I am sorry,” he tells her, low and swift, as if he cannot possibly keep the words in today.

She swallows.

Sighs.

“I know,” she replies. “I know.”


	2. Solas Views Pride

“One last thing,” the white wolf says, before he turns to go.

Solas pauses, and regards his younger self carefully; biting back the heavy mixture of contempt and nostalgia that this young noble always manages to bring out in him. Some of it leaks through, just the same. He finds indifference is difficult when he is faced with the stark reality of who he used to be.

Of how far from wisdom he has always been.

“What?” he growls.

“Your slave,” the white wolf tells him.

He almost growls again.

“She is no slave,” he says, and wishes he could say it louder, and more often, until the world around them accepted it. But this is a time before revolutions, before even a real acknowledgement that the systems in place are broken and spoiled. Only the barest stirrings of unease flourish now.

Such talk is strange, and a liability.

“Then she may as well stay here. It is a dangerous world you venture into, and unkind to the unmarked. I am certain we could find a place for her here, if you reject her,” his younger self says.

His lip curls.

“I will let you put no markings upon her. Not even Mythal’s,” he replies, dripping with distaste. He erased hers with his own two hands. Wide eyes staring at him afterwards, a little uncertain. Beautiful. The smallest thing he could offer to do, but he will snap this other wolf’s neck between his jaws before he permits anyone to write slave markings upon her again.

Mythal watches their conversation with some interest.

“Unmarked but maimed? You think that is better?” the white wolf asks. “What use have you for such a simple creature? If your schemes are as grand as you have implied-”

“She is a warrior. A very fine one,” he snaps.

“She can barely cast a simple spell,” his younger self counters. “Surely there are other creatures you can enjoy brutalizing along your quest. Have you not grown tired of tormenting her yet?”

The barb hits home, and in spite of himself, some of his anger leeches into the air between them. It is met by cool indifference; and his younger self’s composure only makes it all the worse.

“You are an ignorant child, and you know nothing of matters between us,” he warns; and he finds he is almost envious of it. How simple it would be, to see her the way the white wolf does. To blame someone else for what has happened. To think he could spare her sorrows, instead of cause them.

“I know enough to know you are a  _wretch_ ,” his younger self snaps.

“Pride,” Mythal warns.

There is a tense moment, before both of them draw back.

“I will buy her,” the white wolf offers, even as his face curls in disgust at the notion. “Name your price.”

He sneers back.

“She is not my slave,” he reiterates.

“Then Mythal might claim her as she pleases,” the white wolf suggests.

Mythal, however, only shakes her head at the notion. He has won her over to his own way of thinking, for the time being, through the judicious use of truths and obfuscation. And he will keep his heart safe - as safe as he can - from the evanuris.

All of them.

Frustration frays at the edges of his younger self’s calm.

Of course he wants to keep her. Doubtless, he doesn’t even realize why. But she is who she is, and in any life, he thinks, he would be drawn in by that. In some form or another.

This white wolf, though… no matter how bright he is now, one day his fur will darken. His teeth will be stained with blood. He will have to learn all the hard lessons of the world, and if she stays by his side, he might drag her along through all of them again.

At least  _he_  has the virtue of having already committed his failures. At least he might help her heal, now, in whatever way he can; knowing the full extent of her hurts.

Knowing the cause of them.

“She stays with me,” he declares, simply. “That is her own choice.”

His younger self snorts.

“She is bound to you. However you wish to define it. I think if you cared about her at all, you would keep yourself very far away from her.”

 _Precisely_ , he thinks, meeting the other wolf’s gaze.

Then he tears eyes away, and back towards Mythal. He inclines his head, and prepares to leave again.

“Please,” his younger self asks.

Plaintive. Young. Willing to set pride aside, just for a moment, to try for her.

He pauses.

Something bitter and hard and angry unfurls below his ribs. It sinks through his fur, and into the air; potent and dark, slick as oil.

“Never,” he denies, and the feelings slip around the word. He will never let them mark her. He will never let her be owned, or caged, or harmed again, if he can help it.

The white wolf curls his lip at him.

But there is nothing more to be said, and so finally, he goes.


	3. Pride Views Banal'ras

He is not sure what to make of this strange wolf and his slave, the first time he sees them.

They are an odd pair. The wolf names himself Banal’ras, and is, he decides in short order, very dangerous. Mythal takes to him for some reason, though. They speak in private, often, and that seems dangerous and inadvisable and makes him nervous every time it happens, but there is little he can do about it. 

Banal’ras does not speak to him. Almost ignores him, in fact, unless it is to glare disdainfully at him. The black wolf is bigger, and stronger, and his emotions cling to him like a shroud of misery. Misery that does not abate at all in the presence of his slave; if anything, it seems to worsen, though Banal’ras has control enough that the particulars of his feelings towards her are difficult to distinguish.

But they are  _strong_  feelings. 

The creature, he thinks, may offer insights to its master’s ways. If he is to be barred from Banal’ras meetings with Mythal, this may be his only opening to get a better grasp of the situation.

He watches her for a time. She is a battered thing. She looks more like she belongs in the aftermath of a brutal battlefield than in the glittering beauty of Mythal’s palace.

She seems to know it herself, avoiding the more lovely gardens and opulent chambers in favour of quiet and unoccupied spaces. Spirits often seek her out. He is surprised by that. What could she have to offer that would interest them? He’d think they might have mistaken her for a readily available body, except that none of the ones who approach her seem particularly interested in such things, and even if they were, she is small and broken and unsuitable in many ways.

It seems more like they are… keeping her company. And she welcomes their company, almost exclusively.

He doesn’t consider that she might have reason to fear the palace’s other denizens until he watches an encounter in one of the gardens.

His gut twists.

He wonders if the elves who troubled her had the right of it; if this Banal’ras keeps her for such depravities. He is embarrassed at their conduct and their speculations - though, thinking on it, it is only to be expected, he supposes. She does not feel. Her face is expressive and her voice carries weight, but the air around her remains still and silent.

It is very strange.

He wonders how he might garner any information at all from such a being. She is physically competent, unexpectedly skilled; he arranges for them to meet regularly, and discovers that she is a decent instructor as well.

He finds that sometimes he forgets that he is supposed to be gathering information, and not simply appreciating her tutelage on its own merits.

But she is, he thinks, a bigger mystery than even Banal’ras. She claims not to be enslaved, and yet she is clearly bound to the black wolf. Her emotions do not seem to exist, and yet the spirits assure him that they do. She produces magic; a weak rush of sputtering incoherence that barely manifests, but still  _does._

And she finds him in a dream.

He looks closer, then. And he thinks he sees it, all wrapped up inside of her. Grief. Pain. Sorrow. A vivid array of emotions, held close and kept beneath her skin.

It is shocking.

Someone has cleaved her from the world.

He starts to ask her more about herself, about her baffling and painful state, but it is clear she does not wish to discuss it. He offers her a place in Mythal’s palace; for surely she would be better off here than with her questionable master. She could give them information and he could provide her with protection. Better treatment. Repair for her many damages. 

She turns down his offer.

He could still offer her something, though. Some barrier against harm. Some hope.

Perhaps she will come around.

He does not think she is an enemy, not truly. There is a way to her, when she perceives danger. She grasps at him as if she means to thrust him behind her, away from the source of it. And sometimes she looks at him with an unexpected warmth in her eyes. He learns to look back, to try and see it even when it does not touch the air around her.

It is one thing, he thinks, to make necessary sacrifices.

It is another to batter a being in one’s care to the point of cruelty.

He finds Banal’ras in the corridors outside the throne room. Staring at the tiled mosaics upon the walls. Sometimes the black wolf seems enchanted by the palace; wistful and almost longing, in a way.

At other times, an unexpected disdain appears to be the prevailing emotion.

“Tell me something,” he says, slinking along on his own bright paws as he rounds the corridor behind Mythal’s guest.

The other wolf glances at him, but gives him no further acknowledgement.

They are light and dark, similar and yet utterly opposite. A play of contrasts against one another. There is something deeply unnerving about Banal’ras that he cannot quite place his finger on. A frisson of  _wrongness_  that gets his hackles up.

“The state of your… companion. The condition she was in when we first met you. The way she is severed from the sky, so that she seems emotionless. Her pain. Her missing limb. Did you do all that to her?” he wonders.

Banal’ras stares back at the intricate outlines of dancing figures in the murals all across the hall.

“Yes.”

He cannot help but curl his lip in disdain at the admission. So simple. So unapologetic. Because what else need be said? A bare-faced slave has no rights, and technically no one need justify their treatment of one. But there is a difference between what is permissible and what is right. What is decent. Mythal might kill any one of her servants at a whim, but she never would.

He himself could add to the torments of those beneath him, but it is monstrous to delight in such things. And even the worst of Mythal’s kin would not be so petty, so wantonly cruel, as to… to…

“You are a wretched and shameful thing,” he tells Banal’ras.

He leaves the corridor, then, without waiting for a reply.

There must be a way to free her of him. Even if she does not fully understand or appreciate the matter, he will make every effort to rescue her. No one deserves such suffering.

He will save her, if he can.


	4. On Compassion

Compassion is soothing her.

He watches as the spirit helps hide her from the other denizens of the palace, letting her find a moment’s peace beneath the branches of a silvery garden tree. It feels like an intrusion on his part; but if the spirit thought it was, then he would not be permitted to witness them, either.

Compassion is old and kind, and is nurtured well among Mythal’s followers. It has spent many, many years traversing the layers between Dreaming and Waking, and become something great and wondrous. Something that has lived in the fog of his earliest memories as a warmth, and reassurance, and source of unexpected wisdom.

He remembers when the spirit shattered, when Mythal was killed; that great tragedy that cost the world even more than Mythal herself. Irreplaceable beings, people and spirits and treasures were lost and shattered as well.

They have a chance, now, to avoid that fate. This spirit might yet linger in the world, and continue to add to its beauties. Instead of a tattered tragedy, Mythal’s legacy might become what it should be. Might truly make things so much better for everyone.

He reminds himself of this, even as his mind turns to thoughts of what he has shattered to bring them here. Other irreplaceable beings.

Compassion looks at him, and in its eyes, for a moment, he sees Cole.

A strange sort of fear runs down his spine. He wonders if, in the end, the world might not be doomed to run only in cycles of pain and despair. If he has not simply changed the players in a game that will still result in tragedy, no matter what any of them do.

That cannot be allowed to happen.

Defeat is impermissible.

He looks at his heart, and he is not sure either of them could survive it again.


	5. Wishes

He wishes to save her.

Sometimes he entertains ideas of fighting Banal’ras; of removing the dark wolf from the world. He is not certain how he would manage such a feat. Outwitting him, perhaps. With how perilously little he knows of the mystery surrounding him, though, he is obviously at a disadvantage in every arena.

For now.

Sometimes he lets himself imagine what might follow, however, once he rescued the monster’s captive. He would stop wearing his wolf form so much, he thinks. He would have to be as kind as he could be. As patient as he could be. He has seen trauma before, and he knows it leaves long marks. There are some in Mythal’s palace who once served other evanuris, and though most have been here since even before he took a body, many still require delicacy in certain situations.

Scars of the spirit are the hardest to mend.

And he has seen, too, Mythal’s own people behave inappropriately; and render one another in need of recovery.

But it would be worth it, he thinks, to help her. He would make time for that. He would befriend her, and show her that the world did not need to be cruel. That not all wolves would rend and tear pieces away from her. That some could be gentle.

Could be kind.

He wishes to save her.

But for now, she is gone, and he can only wait for Banal’ras to make some reappearance on the stage of the world.


	6. Red Lyrium

Finding red lyrium comes as even more of a shock to Solas than it does to her.

“No,” he says, shaking his head at the remnants which Lady Ortahn reluctantly shows them. The room feels strange. Even moreso than usual, the press of the blight is… it is wrong, to her.

“No,” Solas repeats. “This should not be here. There was not a single trace of red lyrium here before. Not at this time. I would have known; it would have spread, as it does. We would have encountered it.”

What does it mean?

There is an oddly entrancing quality to the Blighted lyrium. Something she could never recall feeling before. A whisper, like… a calling.

The draw unnerves her.

The lack of explanation unnerves Solas.

They make camp without finding anything to ease either of their fears, and she explains how to safely dispose of the lyrium to Lady Ortahn’s people. Solas trails beside her, thoughtful and quiet. He wears a heavy hood to obscure his features; he looks like a shadow, half lost in the darkness of the deep roads.

Once again she’s scrambling for answers, and she wonders what he still might not have told her about all of this.

When she finally sleeps that night, beside him, she dreams of the darkness.

She falls into it, only to wake to hands on her shoulders, firm and just a little frantic. When she blinks open her eyes she sees Solas’ worried face peering down at her. 

His distress eases only a little as she sucks in a breath.

What was that?

“What happened?” he asks her, gripping her as if he’s afraid she’ll vanish as soon as he lets go.

“I was dreaming,” she says.

“You were not,” he counters. “I could not find you in the Fade.”

He sounds distraught.

But she can’t offer him any better answer, except their shared speculation and concerns. Why the Blight would call to her, neither of them can say. But Solas seems convinced that the answer to their mystery lies with the Titan itself.

Or perhaps he simply doesn’t know where else they might find it.

They venture on, ever downwards, accompanied by Lady Ortahn’s people until they reach the city. The Deep Roads are so different. Dream-like, almost, and when she sleeps again, she sits at side of a massive black wolf. Until she falls through his fur, like smoke, and into shadow; and wakes to Solas’ worried face once more.

She is afraid, she realizes. A hard knot of fear that settles deep in her chest, cold as ice.

He takes her hand; but she only squeezes his and then lets it go. Puts some more distance between them.

“Probably shouldn’t stay too close,” she warns him.

“You are not tainted,” he insists.

She’s not so sure of that herself.

He looks at her for a moment, and then reaches over and brushes her cheek.

Just gently.

There are no reassurances he can offer that wouldn’t ring more than a little false, all things considered.

Lady Ortahn promises to get them an audience with the dwarven council. But Solas is not content to wait; and neither, it seems, are the Sha-Brytol, who approach them when the light dims, and lead the way for them to the heart of the city.

The heart of the Titan.

The dwarves withdraw. They try to get her to withdraw along with them - something about sacred paths - but Solas stops them. The two of them are left, then, to head further through lyrium-encrusted chambers, until they reach their goal.

She stares at the gleaming, pulsing, silvery light.

Solas raises a hand, and presses it to his chest.

“The heart of the Titan,” he says. “Mythal claimed it, when she slew it in another lifetime. It granted her tremendous power. Now it grants me the same.”

She looks between him and the light.

Well, that explains a few things, then. A few deeply unnerving and creepy things.

“Is it offended?” she wonders.

He frowns.

“It is… bewildered,” he replies. A moment later, his eyes flash.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting to see happen. She’s accustomed to that gesture preceding uncommon displays of magic - and the loss of a limb. 

There aren’t a lot of strong positive associations with it, to be honest.

For the entire chamber to glow vividly is still a bit surprising, though. The lyrium hums oddly. The pulse of the Titan’s heart beats very powerfully for a moment, and something wavers up through her feet. Discordant and strange.

The brightness streams downwards, and then coalesces into the ghostly visage of a woman.

Hair cresting from her head like horns; expression wry.

Solas inhales sharply.

“Well,” says Flemeth. “It seems we have some matters yet to discuss.”


	7. Black Heart

Pride makes it a point to discourage people from interfering with either of Mythal’s guests.

Banal’ras is strange and potentially dangerous, and most of the palace denizens are sensible enough to avoid him on their own; though he finds that the spirits show less reserve. But they are spirits, and they are drawn to mysteries as much as anything else. He expects it of Curiosity, and Rage’s interest is no surprise. Not even Sorrow’s, particularly.

Compassion’s fascination with the black wolf is more unexpected. Still. It is Compassion, and in the end, it is most concerned with suffering.

As evidence of the quality of Banal’ras character mounts, he becomes increasingly certain that any suffering he might endure is only merited.

Unfortunately, palace denizens of all stripes have fewer reservations on approaching their guest’s bare-faced property. She is not frightening. Strange, yes, but not frightening.

At first he takes it as a matter of principle and practicality to keep people from interfering with her. It is unseemly of them, and unnecessary, and it could hinder any efforts on his part to gather information. 

But the more time they spend together, the more he wishes for her safety on its own merits. And so he finds himself watching her; and watching the people around her, and keeping an eye and an ear on things. Just in case there should be any repeats of the incident in the garden.

Most of it is talk.

Some of it deeply unpleasant; but no more than talk, in the end.

“It should be disposed of,” he overhears one of his peers mentioning. “The thing is unsightly. Just get rid of it and offer this Banal’ras a replacement and apologies after the fact. Even looking at it makes me uncomfortable.”

“Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission?” another replies.

“Precisely. At this point that eerie wolf ought to thank me if I just evaporated the thing on the spot.”

He dislikes the tone this conversation is taking, and resolves to make it a little more clear to these particular elves that any such ideas would cause them far more inconvenience than it would be worth.

But then the air trembles, and they freeze.

Stock still.

Only the slight rise and fall of their chests as they breathe indicate that they’re still alive

Banal’ras stalks out of the shadows behind them. Six red points gleam in the dark before his head rears out from the space between two pillars. Claws clack over the floor as he sweeps between the frozen pair with long, deliberate strides; smooth as smoke.

“I cannot imagine that either of you were just referring to my companion,” the dark wolf says. “For I heard you use such unfitting terms to describe the subject of your derision. So perhaps you could forgive my interruption, and enlighten me - of whom were you speaking?”

The elves look terrified.

He wonders if he should intervene. They are, in the end, his people, and it is his duty to protect them. But Banal’ras does not seem to have harmed them, yet - and he finds himself somewhat curious to see how this will play out.

He readies his awareness of his own magic, just in case, and settles in to observe.

“Apologies,” one of the pair finally offers. “It was only in jest.”

The dark wolf slinks around his frozen victims. Staying in the corners of their eyes, it seems; never quite gone, but not always within sight, either.

“Jesting. I see.”

The air grows tense.

He prepares to intervene. But then Banal’ras’ eyes flash, strangely, and the spells breaks before he can even react. The magic holding the two elves gives way, and they both stagger. They suck in deep breaths and move swiftly away from the wolf they have offended.

“The problem with jesting, of course, is that now, if anything should happen to my heart, I will have to assume that you are involved. And if I assume that you are involved, I shall kill you. At once. Almost certainly before you have even the chance to speak, let alone offer an excuse,” Banal’ras declares. “Then I shall beg forgiveness from Mythal.”

“Your - your  _heart?”_  one of the elves asks, his obvious surprise actually managing to outweigh his fear for a moment.

The emotions in the air burn, for a moment, offering a faint glimpse beyond the slicked-down weight of things that Banal’ras usually keeps wrapped around himself. A bite of ferocity, layered over brilliant shades of devotion.

He, too, is surprised to see it.

“As I said,” the dark wolf replies, baring his teeth.

With scattered apologies, the offending elves ask no more questions, and flee.

After a moment, Banal’ras turns his gaze to where he is standing. Watching from the archway.

“Your heart?” he cannot help but echo in surprise.

“Whatever little mine is worth, it is hers,” Banal’ras replies.

For a moment, the two of them regard one another, and drift through an uneasy space between disdain and confusion and something else; something less easily described.

Then the dark wolf turns, and melts back into the shadows.

He mulls this development over for a moment.

 _He is right. It is not a heart worth much,_  he decides. Even monsters might show affection, in the end. But that does not forgive mistreatment.

If anything, it only makes the cruelty all the more unforgivable. 


	8. By Night

He spied them in one of the gardens at night.

It was by pure chance that he was even out there. He woke from odd dreams to a sense of restlessness, and it sent him pacing through the corridors, and then out through the nearest archways and onto the garden paths. For several minutes he simply admired some of the luminescent plants, and the crystalline trees which reflected the moonlight.

And then he saw them.

Or her, rather. He saw her at first.

Her face was tilted up towards the sky. The faint light reflected off of a dampness on her cheeks, and his breath caught at the sight. She was awash in tears. Her arm was tucked tightly around herself, and her eyes were closed.

Asleep, it seemed.

He thought, for half a second, that she was leaning against the garden wall, and that she had brought some sort of blanket with her. The vulnerability of the situation struck him, and he resolved to approach her. To discover what had driven her from her chambers in the dead of night, and perhaps offer alternate accommodations.

But then the ‘blanket’ moved of its own accord, and revealed itself to be a tail, and the ‘wall’ shifted. All at once he realized that Banal’ras was curved at her back. The dark wolf’s head was tucked tightly at her side, and he was awake; his eyes were narrow slits of light amidst the garden’s glowing flowers.

They stared at one another for a long moment. 

Then Banal’ras let out the slightest huff of breath, as if cautioning him to be quiet, and fully closed his eyes.

With no other recourse, he found himself reluctantly heading back into the palace again.


	9. By Night, Lead-In

Sometimes it is the little things that get to her most. The big things are so big that they all just sort of crash into this massive well of pain that’s too vast, really, for her to completely comprehend. She just sort of shuts down when she tries to. No tears, no pain, just a hollowed out feeling of despair.

But the little things sneak through. They’re small enough to crack open the big ones sometimes, and it all comes tumbling out.

There are tiny blue flowers, shaped like stars, that grow in some of the gardens. She recognizes the scent of them. The same flowers used to grow at one of the camping grounds her clan frequented, when she was very young. They only release their perfume in the evenings.

The scent hits her and all at once she thinks of places she will never go back to, and people she will never speak to again.

It sucks the air out of her and brings her to her knees.

Little tiny flowers.

Perfume on the wind.

Solas finds her like that, on the ground. Trembling as if she’d run for miles, with soil on her hand and tears racing down her cheeks. 

She cannot stop weeping for long enough to explain herself.

But he asks no questions as he curls around her, and lets her clutch at his fur. The sky darkens, and she spills her tears until she’s too exhausted to manage any more. Until she leans against him, and tilts her head up towards the stars.

She falls asleep searching for the constellations she recognizes.


	10. Warmth

It’s cold in the mountains.

Solas is pretty good at keeping things at a reasonable temperature. But still, at night, sometimes his bubble of magical insulation fails, and the wintry air creeps in. And, well.

He’s not wearing the form of a wolf anymore.

They haven’t really been… close, very often, since he left Skyhold. A thousand years ago, it feels like. Oh, they’ve touched, and even held each other. Kissed. But the contact was always fraught with the knowledge that it could be their last. That they were standing on opposite ends of a fight.

And then he was a wolf. And it was easy to touch the wolf. Easy, she thinks, to be touched  _as_  a wolf.

But an elf, that’s different. With no impending doom lying over it all, he shies away from too much intimacy. All the complex horror and grief dogging their heels rears up to bite at them when they get too comfortable, it seems. Because she loves him, but he destroyed everything else she ever cared about. Because he loves her, but he knows the weight of what he’s done.

It’s cold, though.

Tonight, maybe, they can let it be that simple.

She looks at him a moment, before she slips into his bedroll with him.

He’s surprised, she can tell. But he doesn’t object. Doesn’t make a single sound of disapproval as she puts her arm around his waist. As she presses her face to his chest. Inhales the scent of him, and closes her eyes.

His heart is beating like mad.

She can feel his pulse racing through the thin material of his shirt.

Gently, she smooths her palm over his back.

It takes him a few seconds to put his own hands on her. He curls around her when he does, warm and firm. He holds her very lightly, at first. But as she leans into him, he begins to press back as well. He nuzzles at her. Runs one hand down her spine.

Shudders.

Begins to shake.

Oh.

She squeezes her eyes closed more firmly as the dam bursts, and then he is sobbing against her. 

But of course he is. He’s still her touch-starved, traumatized, desperately broken heart. What he’s done has only made it all the worse. And though she might be justly be condemned for comforting someone who destroyed her world, it doesn’t really matter. Done is done.

Right now, they’re just two people in a snowy mountain range.

Right now, they both need comfort, and it doesn’t some worth it to try and deny that.

Her own tears leak through his shirt. Before long they’re both clutching at each other, and crying, and he is murmuring half-broken apologies and apologies for his apologies. But she cannot forgive him; she can never forgive him. Even when the words want to slip out, every time. It’s unforgivable.

She can’t.

It’s like torture, listening to him beg for something she has to deny.

So she burrows closer to him, deeper into the bedroll until the blankets are up to her ears, and she can only hear the rhythm of his voice. The pained rise and fall of his whispers.Then she presses a kiss through his shirt, just over his heart.

He quiets.

“Mana, ma vhenan,” she asks, with a sigh.

The only thing that escapes him, then, are his breaths. Hitching and broken, until he finally subsides, and calms once more.

She holds him as the hazy warmth and exhaustion finally drags them both into dreams.


	11. Dreams

It starts as another Blight Dream, at first.

Knowing what the Blight is, now, makes the dreams better and worse. At least there is less mystery. And after Solas does… something, to the Titan, they seem to quiet a little. Drag her in less frequently. But still, they are straining, and strange; and he cannot shield her from them. Their draw is too insistent an undercurrent against the Fade.

But they still happen. When she finds herself sinking into it again, the siren song of it dragging at her, she fights. She calls for Solas before she remembers that he’s not in the Fade at all. She tries to move away from the pull. Find… higher ground, somehow. It’s almost hypnotizing, but she’s getting better at resisting. Just so long as she doesn’t think about what – about who – it  _is._

She’s surprised when a hand closes around her arm, and draws her into the central ring of a bright circle.

Wards.

Etched, and shining, cutting through a verdant island of the Fade.

She blinks, and looks up to see Pride staring down at her. Concern written plainly across his face.

“What are you fleeing from?” he asks her.

Nothing his wards can handle, she doesn’t think. After all, Solas’ can’t, either. The best he can do is follow her into the blackness, and that suits neither of them. But the song that drags at her, draws her into a space that does and doesn’t exist, seems to slink through the Fade with little care for rules or reason. Or even expectations.

Distractions are good, though, and Pride is certainly one of those.

“Bad dreams,” she manages to tell him.

He is dressed in billowing swathes of fabric that ripple in the currents of the air around them. It makes him look ethereal, and spirit-like. She supposes that’s the intended effect.

The worry on his face doesn’t ease.

“You may stay here, if you like,” he offers. “The wards will not permit the Dreaming to warp beyond your liking. And neither will I.”

After only a moment’s hesitation, she nods in agreement. It’s a kind offer, and she’s… missed the company of this younger, less burdened version of Solas. More than she expected to. It’s strange, but only to be expected in the end, she supposes.

The segment of the Fade that he’s offered her sanctuary in is pleasant enough, too. Like a garden, but more overgrown and wild than the ones she’d seen in Mythal’s palace. Peppered with the usual fragment oddities of the Fade, of course. Some broken statues, tangled in the growth. An odd wooden platform, some shattered crystals. Things like that.

“Where are we?” she asks him.

“A meeting place,” Pride replies. “But the meeting is long done with. I was going to leave, when I realized you were close by.”

She nods in acceptance.

They lapse into an easy silence, for a while. Pride seems like he wants to ask her some questions, but doesn’t quite know where to begin. She supposes he’s curious about Solas’ plans. What they might have been doing, where they might have gone. She thinks of what Solas’ had said, too, after they’d finally left Mythal’s palace. About how he assumed his younger self felt.

She’s relatively certain he’s mistaken, though. There isn’t much appeal to her by elvhen standards. She honestly can’t see much reason for Pride to have developed that sort of interest in her, all things considered.

Interest in what might be going on, though, that makes much more sense.

“How have you been faring?” Pride asks.

Her mind immediately turns to recently revelations. Darkened roads, and lost things. Suffering.

“I am well enough,” she says.

Perhaps not her most convincing performance.

Pride frowns.

“If you were to tell me where you are, I could come for you,” he says. “I  _would_  come for you.”

She manages a rueful smile.

“I am not going to tell you what we are doing, Pride,” she declares. Now, more than ever, she is resolved on this front. It’s too much. Bad enough that Solas has to bear it; has to live with the knowledge of what he’s done. There’s no reason to foist it onto this other version of himself. This younger one. Solas won’t let him repeat his mistakes; and she won’t let Solas stop him with lethal means.

Pride’s frown deepens, though, at her reply.

“I will not ask,” he offers. “If you reach a place that would not betray anything you cannot manage to, and send for me, I will come. I will ask no questions. I will not prevail upon you to offer anything at all in return.”

He looks at her intently.

She meets his gaze, taken aback.

“Why?” she wonders.

He shakes his head, just a little.

“Should People not help one another, when they are in need of it?” he asks.

It pulls a real smile from her.

He is quite striking, she thinks. Pale amidst the greenery around them. And he is most striking when he is kind. It reminds her of when she first saw the kindness in Solas. Even when he was being distant, in those early days, or dismissive, it still crept through.

Her heart twists.

“Thank you,” she says.

He shrugs.

“I have done nothing but offer.”

“The offer matters,” she assures him.

He doesn’t seem to have much of a reply to that. She’s not sure one is needed. It’s enough, she thinks, to simply sit for a while. To try not to think of the world that’s waiting. She can see the appeal, she supposes, of dreaming for so long. Just drifting through thoughts and memories. It’s not a great appeal, but under certain circumstances, perhaps it’s the only way to endure things.

To survive.

“Do you-” Pride begins.

He’s halted, though, but a sudden change in the air. An odd sensation that grips at her. Not like the call of the Blight. Not like the pull that Solas sometimes has in dreams, either. For a moment it feels as if the Fade has lost some of its vibrancy. As if she has been tugged behind a glass wall; one layer removed from the peaceful dream.

Pride rises, and reaches for her.

“What is happening?” he asks.

She shakes her head; she doesn’t know. Only it feels like she’s slipping, somehow. Or the dream is. When Pride tries to close his hand around her arm, it passes straight through. As if he has become a spirit.

There is horror in his expression.

She blinks, and then he’s gone. Everything is dark. Utter, pitch blackness, that she takes for the Blight at first.

Right up until it clears away to reveal a moonlit forest, and the distant sounds of howling.


	12. And Dreaming

She’s in… a very odd forest, she thinks.

It has to be a dream. Some part of the Fade, or something to do with the Blight. But it doesn’t feel like it. The air on her skin is crisp and clear. The moon overhead is brilliant, gleaming and silver; casting shafts of light through the shadowy outlines of the trees. Her own breath sounds loud in her ears, and every move she makes feels as substantial and solid as if she were making it in the real world.

Maybe even _more_ substantial and solid than that.

She has been detached from herself. Bogged down by her grief. But this… this is, not like that. She’s in her own skin, so thoroughly that it puts into stark contrast just how disjointed she has become. It’s the grief that’s distant, now. As if the weight of it had been pushing her soul out of her own bones; and something has switched them. Has let her burrow back in, and banished the pain to some distant corner of her mind.

There are eyes on her.

All the little hairs on the back of her neck rise to attention.

She looks, but she can’t see anything. Even as her eyes adjust to the dim light, there’s no trace of movement. No gleam of a gaze in the dark, or whisper of a weapon unsheathing.

No flicker of magic.

But there are eyes on her.

“Hello?” she calls.

There is no answer.

She turns, carefully. And yet it seems that no matter what direction she’s facing, the sense of being watched remains fixed at the back of her neck. Looking up gives her a beautiful view of the forest canopy, spread out before a star-filled sky. But apart from some leaves swaying in the wind, there’s no sign of anything up there.

Still.

It’s dark enough that her inability to spot anyone doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t there.

 _And it’s a dream,_ she thinks. Dreams don’t have to make any sense, except to themselves.

Maybe it would be wise to move, though.

She picks a likely looking trail, and starts walking. Weaving her way between the trees. This dream forest is old, she thinks. The trunks she passes are gnarled and twisted, worn and interwoven in ways that speak of long, long years spent growing. Moss crawls over fallen logs. Petrified roots churn up the earth in some places, and the undergrowth is thick without choking off all the trails.

The sense of being watched only grows, though.

Every step she takes, no matter the direction, it feels like something is moving steadily closer. Slipping through the shadows. Darting away before she can spot it. Her nerves begin to fray.

As the sensation grows, she finds it harder to think. To remain rational. It begins to feel like something is breathing down the back of her neck. When the stump of her arm brushes against a nearby branch, unexpectedly, she nearly launches out of her skin. Her pulse spikes, and she whips around; and as she does a shadow seems to dart away.

As she does, something sharp, like a demon’s claws, trails down her spine.

She runs.

There isn’t much rationale behind the choice. It’s a visceral reaction, so demanding and pure that it consumes her thoughts.

She runs, and whatever it is, it chases her.

Through unfamiliar trails and undergrowth that seems to become increasingly tangled and treacherous. She flies, faster and more reckless in her fear than she should be. Some distant part of her thinks this is strange and unwise. Thinks she should stop, and stand her ground. But it is overridden by the intensity of her flight. The need to escape, swiftly, from the sense of pursuit that snaps at her heels.

That surges up, sometimes, when she rounds a corner, or tries to double-back. It’s herding her, she thinks. But regardless of the revelation, it’s all she can do to continue fleeing, as branches scrape at her arms, and roots catch at her feet.

And then her foot lands on a patch of deceptively open ground, and it gives out beneath her.

She falls.

It’s a rush of dirt and detritus; fear like knives in her chest as she crashes into the sunken cave. Leaves and vines tumble on top of her. She crashes into the surface of a shallow pool. The water barely softens the impact of the ground. It’s enough to rattle her skull, and crush the breath from her lungs. She lands facedown, and her first scrambling attempts to recover has her accidentally inhaling a mouthful of water.

It tastes fresh, at least. As clear as the forest air does. Still, she sputters and spits it out, and clutches the side wall of the pit as she gets to her feet.

There’s no moonlight, here. Dark clouds drift over her head. The pit is even longer than she’d thought when she was first falling. Rocky along the edges, and watery at the bottom. When she tries to climb, though, she finds that the earthen surface won’t hold her weight. It crumbles away beneath her palm, sending up a shower of dirt.

She searches every wall she can find. Stumbles over the tangled plants that had been disguising the pit.

A trap.

For her? But, to what end?

 _Wake up_ , she thinks. She has to wake up. Something’s not right. It’s a demon, or… or something else. Something toying with her. Delighting in her torment.

But it doesn’t matter how hard she tries. She can’t wake up. She can’t even get the sense that this a dream. Her bruises and scrapes throb and sting. The weight of her body refuses to make itself any lighter as she tries to find enough purchase to climb. Even the scant magic she’s managed to learn refuses to manifest; as if she’s gone back to the way she used to be.

As if everything else was a dream.

Oh, what she wouldn’t give for the past few years to have been a dream. To have her friends show up and ask her what happened, how she ended up in that pit. To look up and see the Breach back in the sky. To go back to Skyhold, and find Solas checking over his notes; to wrap her arms around him and tell him about this _terrible_ nightmare she had.

Some part of her waits, and as the moments trickle by, the weight of reality crushes in on her again.

The weight of grief, banished to that far corner of her thoughts, falls onto her once more in its entirety.

Her hand drops from its fruitless grasping at the walls. There’s plenty of air, plenty of open space around her, but it’s hard to breathe. Almost impossible, really. She sinks to her knees, the water climbing up to her hips as she presses her face into her hands, and shakes.

A breeze slopes into the pit, adding shivers to the mess where it hits the damp parts of her clothing.

Something is watching her, still.

She looks up, but there’s nothing. Just the clouded sky, letting only the barest streaks of starlight trickle down, to glint atop the surface of the water. No figure looming at the edge of the pit.

No demon or spirit come to gloat.

“What do you _want?”_ she demands.

Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls.

As if that is a cue, the walls around her begin to shift. The ground trembles. The sky seems to, as well. Clouds swirl. Tree roots, up near the rim of the drop stretch, like vines. She launches herself to her feet, clutching at the nearest wall. Calling out as she tries, once more, to climb her way up.

It’s no use.

The top of the pit closes. Sealing off, bit by rumbling bit.

“No!” a familiar voice cries.

She whips around.

She can’t see him, but she can hear the sound of footfalls, racing forward. Crushing nearby twigs and vines.

“Solas!” she calls back.

He reaches the last remaining opening. She sees his eyes, wide with alarm. Sees his hands, reaching frantically for the opening.

Right before it closes over her.

Right before she’s sealed into total darkness.

Shit.

For a few seconds, there’s only blackness, and the ragged sounds of her own breaths.

“Solas?” she calls again, just in case he might hear her through the walls of earth.

Nothing.

It doesn’t even… it doesn’t even feel like it’s earth that’s around her, anymore. The surface beneath her hand is smooth, rather than crumbling. The scent of the forest, and the dirt, is gone. When she steps, she realizes that the water is, too. But it’s not like the call of the Blight. It’s not the crushing sense of her tainted dreams.

 _Wake up,_ she thinks, desperately.

Her heart hammers in her chest.

_Wake up._

“Solas!”

Her senses shift. She can still feel everything, so strongly. Too strongly. There’s nothing, and the nothing is somehow overwhelming. The space around her presses in, and yet, as she moves, it always seems to yield without really going anywhere. The smooth walls give at a touch; only to close in around her as soon as her arm retracts.

She can taste the air; but the air offers nothing to taste.

She can feel the grit on her clothes. The scratches on her skin. The moisture pressing through the fabric, until it all burns like an insatiable itch. No matter where she goes, she goes nowhere. No matter what she does, she does nothing.

What is this?

She has to…

…she has to wake up.


	13. Tainted (NSFW)

She is in the dark for a long, long time.

Or at least, it feels that way.

In the dark, in the blackness, with whispers. Familiar voices. Loved ones, friends, comrades. Enemies, acquaintances. Strangers, except she thinks maybe not - she thinks maybe she just doesn’t remember where she heard those voices before. They flit at the periphery of her awareness, and sink into the back of her skull. Clawing at her thoughts. Crying out in distress, and in pain. In need, but, she can’t move. Can’t answer.

She’s trapped, and all she can do is listen.

They don’t even say anything distinct. The meaning of the words escapes her, somehow. As if they’re in a language she doesn’t know, except they aren’t. They slide through the shadows. Make them up. Hold her in this prison, and with each passing moment, she’s less sure that it’s a prison and not a tomb.

And then it cracks.

Little fissures of light burst into the blackness, right before all of it breaks at once. She gasps, somehow feeling as if she had been suffocating without realizing it. Her skin burns, molten hot, and everything is too bright instead of too dark. It sends her careening. Sets her heart to hammering, and her lungs to straining, and her mind to scrambling. Trying to pick up the pieces of itself.

Hands close over her shoulders and she almost throws them off, before a familiar voice reaches her ears.

“Vhenan,” Solas says. His tone is gentle but his voice is rough, and ragged, as if he has been running for miles.

Still, it cleaves through the confusion. It’s real and steady and gives her something to hang onto. She stills, and focuses on the feel of his hands, and the ground beneath her legs. She blinks, rapidly, and the brightness that had been eating her vision resolves into blurry shapes and sparks, and the outline of Solas’ face.

Where are they? In a dream? In the past?

“Solas?” she asks, voice barely more than a whisper.

He shakes, just a little, and then pulls her close. She goes easily enough. Falling into his arms as he wraps them around her, and buries his nose against her temple. She breathes him in, and is increasingly certain that they are awake. She thinks she can feel the crumpled fabric of her bedroll beneath her knees. Solas smells like sweat and blood and pine needles, and the blue flames of their camp fire lick at the air behind him. Barely visible past the rumpled fabric on his shoulders.

“Are you hurt?” she asks him. That iron-heavy scent is disquieting. Her hand moves across his back, but he only tightens his grip on her.

“No,” he tells her. “No, I am fine.”

“What happened?” she wonders.

He is quiet for a long moment. She eases back a little, enough to look at his face. It’s still blurry for a bit, until her vision fully clears, at last, and she can see the shadows in his eyes.

She can see the hesitance.

“There was a malevolent… or, at least, an angry creature in the Dreaming,” he tells her. “It ensnared you. But, it is done with now. You will not have to worry about it again.”

His tone is reassuring. But she knows that look in his eyes. That almost-rueful, painful evasion. Secrets stacking up on one another. Truths that are not the whole truth. It makes her feel cold. Makes her want to pull away. Makes her want to take him by the shoulders and shake him. Makes her want to cup his cheek with her hand and stare into his eyes and just look at him until she can figure out how to _see_  the secrets in him.

“Do not lie to me,” is what she says, hard and jagged as broken glass.

His expression falls. His eyes close, and she does reach for his cheek, then. Catching him. Keeping him from looking down. From casting her aside, and retreating back into his precious half-truths and evasions and all that knowledge that sits inside of him and swallows him away, like a black, hungry well.

Like the whispers, still crawling beneath her skin.

“Solas,” she says, and her voice breaks. She cannot… she cannot stand it, anymore. Being in the dark. 

“It is an ancient creature,” Solas tells her. “A thing of this time. I have… appeased it, but only by accepting a task for it. But do not worry. There is little in this world that can counter me, as I am. That is why it took you. That is why it… it made you…”

She waits, as he trails off. Pained.

“Made me what?” she wonders.

“I will fix it,” he assures her. “I will not let it stand. You need not worry. Please, please just… let me handle it?”

“Made me _what?”_  she presses.

He sucks in a breath, and looks at her. And she may not get all of it out of him, she thinks. But she’s got him here. And she thinks she might already know. Or suspect, at least. There’s something… weighing her. Something deep, and heavy with those shadowed whispers. Lying like oil at the bottom of her lungs. Like black fire in the pit of her gut.

“It tainted you,” Solas tells her.

The Blight.

She lets go of him, hastily, half afraid that she might somehow transmit it to him through the simplest of touches. Cold fear knifes through her, along with a surprising depth of resignation. Of course. Of course, it would come to this. She should have been with them, after all. She should be part of it, in the end. So of course she is, now. Poisoned. Blighted by the souls of those she failed, in her love for him.

She pushes at his shoulders, pushes him back, but he catches her wrist. Gently.

“It is alright,” he tells her. “It is alright, I will fix it. We are fixing it. We had to make haste anyway, this changes nothing.”

“Let me go,” she replies.

“Vhenan…”

She pulls, and he releases her. Lets her move back, and wrap her one good arm around herself. She can _feel_  it. Maybe it’s her own imagination, but she doesn’t think so. There are accounts. Of wardens, of tainted recruits, of the dead before they died, talking about it. But when she manages to shift, to lift her hand and look at her skin, she can see no blackened marks. Feel no pain. She uses her mouth to drag up the sleeve of her sleeping shirt, and turns her arm towards the firelight, as Solas watches. Then she takes up her shield and stares critically at her reflection in the polished surface. At the whites of her eyes, and the pulse point of her throat. Maybe it is just too dark to see properly…

Light gleams.

Gentle, magical light. She glances over at Solas, but he only holds it up for her, as she goes back to looking at the shield. Searching the veins at the soft skin of her elbow, and then the backs of her knees. The scarred-over fleshed from her amputated arm.

“It has not progressed,” Solas tells her. “The Blight has only just begun here, and our work with the other Titan has diminished some of it. It has not yet spilled into the Dreaming, the way it had in the future. So long as you stay on the surface, it will move slowly in you.”

She glances at him, lips thinning with displeasure, even as she feels a note of relief.

“You are not leaving me behind,” she tells him.

“No,” he agrees, more easily than she expected. He dispels the light, and then turns his gaze downwards again. “There are better options than simply delaying it. I will cure you of it, my heart. I can promise you that much.”

Sometimes, she thinks, his promises are frightening. Even the most well-meant ones.

“I do not want that promise,” she tells him, numbly. There are too many ways it could awry. Too many dangers, to the ways he might hold to his word. She knows what it is worth… and knows how well he can work around such things, too. 

“I…” he begins, and then trails off with a curse.

She closes her eyes.

Blighted.

Setting her shield aside, she cannot help but wrap her arm around herself again. Cannot help but hang her head, and try to suck in a few steadying breaths. But they break in her mouth. Her insides feel like they’ve been coated in bile, and she shakes, wondering how much of it is real and how much of it is her own mind, and how much that even _matters_  in this time. 

“It fits,” she finds herself saying. “I should be dead anyway. It fits. They can take their vengeance upon me.” _And not you._  They can have her, and the whole of it can go to whatever fate awaits them; and this world, at least, can carry on to some better future.

What a bitter hope that is.

“No,” Solas says. Staring at her from the few feet of distance that may as well be a canyon between them. He shakes his head, and his hands clench atop the ground. “No, vhenan. You betrayed no one. You have as much right to life as anyone. There is no vengeance for them to take, not from you.”

As if she would let them have it from him.

She never could. That is why they are here, in the end.

_Selfish._

Her eyes burn. She grits her teeth, and shakes, and cannot keep the shaking from turning to sobbing. Clutching at herself, tighter and tighter, until her nails are digging in through the fabric of her shirt, and her vision is blurred by tears rather than disorientation.

“Solas,” she says.

He moves as if a chain has just snapped, and finally freed him to hasten to her. He pulls her into his arms again, and she struggles to recall why he shouldn’t.

“I am poison,” she whispers. Remembers. Reminds.

“Oh, no,” he says. “Oh, no, my love. I am the poison. I always have been.”

They both are, she supposes. They both are wretched, poisonous failures, in their own way. Both of them together. She clutches at his rumpled clothes, and leans into him. Pouring out her tears against the fabric of his shirt, as his own spill down the side of her neck. As he bites back his apologies, until they come rushing free anyway. Not begging for the forgiveness she cannot grant, but nevertheless spilling his remorse across her. Half-abandoned promises and stymied efforts at comfort, all his frustrated hopes of fixing what cannot be fixed.

She leans her forehead against his neck, and breathes in slowly through her nose. As the tears taper off, as the edge of sorrow vanishes into the massive pit of grief that lives inside of her, she sighs. Turns her face more fully towards him, pressing her nose against his neck. All but begging for what comfort she can find, in actions if not in words.

_Please._

Touch. Touch is more comforting, she thinks. There are no words that can settle this, but even if it brings with it a heavy pang of guilt, the warmth of his arms around her just… soothes something.

Something that _can_  be soothed. in this broken mess.

She hates herself even as she reaches for it. Curls her fingers against his collar, and lets him keep his arms around her, and gives in to the tiny part of her that feels _safe_  like this. Because nothing else does. She cannot even feel safe in her own skin, now.

Solas stills for a moment. And then he lifts her hand from his collar, and presses her palm to his lips. He answers her unspoken plea with soft caresses. Steady and simple, as he presses her more firmly to him, and runs a hand down her back. Folds her fingers into his grasp, and twines them with his own.

“My love,” he calls her. Wounded and remorseful, and sincere.

“Shh,” she replies, cupping her hand around his cheek again. She presses her thumb to his lips, as he looks down at her in the dark. 

He leans in slowly. Telegraphing his intentions, but she doesn’t move away. Doesn’t evade him, as he brushes his lips to her own. It is barely a kiss, at first. She feels his breath more than his lips. Her hand trails up his cheek, and she tilts up, just a bit. Seeking the soft warmth of him, before she remembers why he might not want to press more closely.

Then she does pull back, a little. Dropping downwards as his mouth takes it turn in chasing hers.

“I am tainted,” she whispers. “Is it…?”

_Is it alright?_

He kisses her soundly.

Pulling her flush to him, his mouth all at once hungry. He doesn’t hesitate for a moment, and the feel of him, the warm press of his lips, his hands on her, his chest against hers… she cracks open at it, breaks a little bit over how much she wants it, how badly she _missed_  it, how undeniably broken she is in so many ways. How this might be the only wound for which there is a balm he can actually provide.

It is the most selfish of her hurts, she believes, that wound that opened up when he left her. But there are so many. So many, with no hope of healing.

She slides her hand to the back of his head, and holds him against her.

“Vhenan,” she calls him, breathless, when he breaks away to trail his lips across her jaw. Frantic presses that make their way to her neck. Her own touch encourages him. Holding him to her, before she draws it down and runs the delicate flesh of one of his ears between her fingers. Brushes his cheek, and wipes a tear track from the corner of his eye.

He stalls a bit, and the trail of kisses turns to somewhat incoherent nuzzling. It is not a frantic pursuit of passions, as it trembles apart, in more tears and touches. She settles against his lap, shifting her legs around him, but they move in the simplest of gestures for a long while. Quiet, but for soft exhalations, and gently murmured words.

Solas pauses at one point to straighten out the fabric of her bedroll. And then she lays back onto it, as his hands slide up the bottom of her shirt, and his mouth trails down her collarbone. He moves intently downwards, but she halts him, and pulls him back up. She doesn’t want him going so far away, as absurd as it may be. She doesn’t need him to catch her on fire. She needs him to meet her gaze, to keep with her, even if only in this simple way.

Her hand trails across his jaw, and she grasps his chin. And he gets it. He stays with her, as his hand slips between her thighs. He presses at her through the flimsy fabric of her underclothes. Long, slow touches, that get her hips rocking into him. When she reaches for him, he catches her wrist and moves her hand back up to his shoulder instead.

“Let me,” he asks, quietly.

She sighs, and pulls him in for another kiss instead. Rocks against his hand as the slow, low heat in her builds. They move in stages. Sometimes he withdraws his touch to from between her legs to trail it up underneath her shirt, and slide his thigh against her instead. Sometimes they simply move against one another through their clothes. Sometimes she presses her face to his neck, and kisses his pulse; or draws him down onto her, and just holds him, and _breathes._

“Solas.”

She’s not even sure if either of them come before she falls asleep again, wrapped in his arms. The first few times she almost drifts off, she snaps awake again in a rush of fear that has him whispering assurances into her ear.

“You are safe,” he promises. “Your dreams will be safe.”

She is not certain she believes the former.

But she trusts he will have seen to the latter, somehow. And when she does finally fall into dreams, they are of a peaceful, gentle sort. Lonely only for the first few moments, as she lies on soft moss and familiar pillows, borrowed from her bed in Skyhold. Bathed in sunlight, until Solas is there again, and it is all dreamy sensation. The pale expanse of his shoulder, and heat of his mouth, reverent upon her skin.

She’s not certain if either of them comes while they’re awake. But she knows they do in dreams. As he stays with her, and looks at her, and slides into her. She catches one of his hands so she can thread her fingers with his. So she can hold onto him as they settle into a rhythm that matches the thrum of her heartbeat. That moves in patterns as symbolic as not, sensations drifting up, impressions of his touch lingering like tracks in fresh fallen snow. When she comes, it all melts away into a muted darkness.

When she wakes, she’s pressed firmly to his chest.

Her skin is tingling, and her heart is heavy.

“Marry me,” she asks him.

He goes utterly still, and… yes, she supposes that was a rather unexpected reaction to all of this. It’s possible she’s not entirely awake. Her hand traces pattens across his back. Her nose is squished up near his armpit. He smells like a damp, sweaty forest, and she probably does, too.

He’s the Dread Wolf, she has the Blight, and the world has ended and begun again.

“That would bind you to me forever,” he tells her. Like a warning.

“I am already bound to you forever,” she replies. If there is any further way to prove it, she has no idea what it might be.

Solas presses his lips to the top of her head.

“Then we are already married,” he says. “Because I will never leave you again.”

She closes her eyes, and stills her hand to rest it between his shoulder blades.

Fair enough, really.


End file.
